THE AMERICAN CONFLICT: A HSTORY OF THE GREAT REBELLION

ble that a still larger majority would | States in time of actual armed rebellion

in against the authority and Government of have voted against Emancipation.

the United States, and as a fit and necessary From an early hour of the struggle, war measure for suppressing said rebellion, the public mind slowly and steadily do, on

do, on this first day of January, in the year

of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and gravitated toward the conclusion that sixty-three, and in accordance with my purthe Rebellion was vulnerable only or pose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the

full period of one hundred days from the mainly through Slavery; but that

day day first above mentioned, order and desconclusion was scarcely reached by a ignate as the States and parts of States majority before the occurrence of the wherein the people thereof respectively are

this day in rebellion against the United New York Riots, in July, 1863. The Sts

States, the following: to wit: President, though widely reproached “Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the with tardiness and reluctance in tak

ody parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemine, Jeffer

son, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascening up the gage plainly thrown down sion, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, by the Slave Power, was probably

St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including

We the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabaahead of a majority of the people of

ma, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North the loyal States in definitively accept Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight ing the issue of Emancipation or Dis

counties designated as West Virginia, and

also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, union.

Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, PrinHaving taken a long step in the

cess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities

of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which exright direction, he never retracted nor

cepted parts are, for the present, left preciseseemed to regret it; though he some- | ly as if this proclamation were not issued. times observed that the beneficial re

“And, by virtue of the power and for the

purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare sults of the Emancipation policy were that all persons held as slaves within said neither so signal nor so promptly designated States and parts of States are realized as its sanguine promoters

| and henceforward shall be free; and that

the Executive Government of the United had anticipated. Nevertheless, on the States, including the military and naval auday appointed, he issued his absolute thorities thereof, will recognize and main

| tain the freedom of said persons. Proclamation of Freedom, as follows: "And I hereby enjoin upon the people so

“Whereas, on the 22d day of September, declared to be free to abstain from all vioin the year of our Lord 1862, a proclamation lence, unless in necessary self-defense; and was issued by the President of the United I recommend to them that, in all cases States, containing, among other things, the when allowed, they labor faithfully for reafollowing, to wit:

sonable wages. 66 That on the 1st day of January, in the year of our “And I further declare and make known Lord 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State

that such persons, of suitable condition, will or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be

be received into the armed service of the then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive United States to garrison forts, positions, Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain

stations, and other places, and to man ves-. the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts

"And upon this act, sincerely believed to they may make for their actual freedom.'

46 That the Executive will, on the first day of January be an act of justice, warranted by the Conaforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts stitution upon military necessity, I invoke of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and

the considerate judgment of mankind, and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on the gracious favor of Almighty God. that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of

" In testimony whereof, I have hereunto the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not

“Done at the city of Washington, this then in rebellion against the United States."

1st day of January, in the year of our "Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, (L. .] Lord 1863, and of the independence President of the United States, by virtue of of the United States the 87th. the power in me vested as Commander-in- "By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN. chief of the Army and Navy of the United “WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State."
by Gen. Scott, and apparently acceded to by the * On the day after the Bull Run rout, the Cabinet, he proceeds: writer first heard this conviction openly de- ! I have said that the war may assume anothclared. The credit of the apowal belongs to er aspect, and be a short and bloody one. And Gen. John Cochrane.

. On the abstract question of the the Union-an efficient instrument in the

m | hands of the Rebels for carrying on the war right of the Government to proclaim

11-a source of military strength to the Rebeland enforce Emancipation, Edward lion, and of danger to the Government at Everett, in a speech in Faneuil Hall, home and abroad, with the additional cer

| tainty that, in any event but its abandonBoston, October, 1864, forcibly said:ment, it will continue in all future time to

work these mischiefs, who can suppose it is "It is very doubtful whether any act of the duty of the United States to continue to the Government of the United States was recognize it? To maintain this would be a necessary to liberate the slaves in a State contradiction in terms. It would be to rewhich is in rebellion. There is much reason cognize a right in a Rebel master to employ for the opinion that, by the simple act of his slave in acts of rebellion and treason, levying war against the United States, the and the duty of the slave to aid and abet relation of Slavery was terminated; certain- his master in the commission of the greatest ly, so far as concerns the duty of the United crime known to the law. No such absurdity States to recognize it, or to refrain from can be admitted ; and any citizen of the Uniinterfering with it. Not being founded on ted States, from the President down, who the law of nature, and resting solely on posi- should, by any overt act, recognize the duty tive local law-and that not of the United of a slave to obey a Rebel master in a hosStates as soon as it becomes either the tile operation, would himself be giving aid motive or pretext of an unjust war against and comfort to the enemy."

THE XXXVIIth Congress, as we the extra session, evinced a steadihave seen while endeavoring to ly growing consciousness steadily evade or to avert its eyes from the growing in the legislative as well as fact that it was Slavery which was the popular mind that Slavery had waging deadly war on the Union- closed with the Union in mortal did yet give fair notice, through the strife-a struggle which both could guarded but decisive language of not survive. some of the more conservative Re- Still, President Lincoln hesitated publicans, that, if the Rebellion were and held back; anxious that the persisted in, it must inevitably result Union should retain its hold on the in the overthrow of Slavery. And Border Slave States, especially on the action of that Congress, even at Kentucky; and apparently hoping Vol. I., pp. 564-8.

to such a war--an anti-Slavery war- it seems * Hon. Elisha R. Potter, of Rhode Island

to me we are inevitably drifting. It seems to

| me hardly in the power of human wisdom to who may be fairly styled the hereditary chief of

prevent it. We may commence the war without the Democratic party of that State-made a meaning to interfere with Slavery, but let us speech on the War to the Senate thereof on the have one or two battles, and get our blood exci10th of August, 1861. After distributing the ted, and we shall not only not restore any more blame of inciting the War between the Northern

slaves, but shall proclaim freedom wherever we

go. And it seems to me almost judicial blindand the Southern Sultras,' dilating on the re

ness on the part of the South that they do not sources of the South, and elucidating the no- see that this must be the inevitable result, if fighting, anaconda' mode of warfare proposed the contest is prolonged."

ARMY SLAVE-CATCHING PROHIBITED.

257

that the alternative of conceded Dis- | Mr. James F. Wilson, of Iowa. Mr. union or constrained Emancipation Wilson, of Mass., soon reported' his might yet be avoided. His first An- bill; of which he pressed the considnual Message * cautiously avoided the eration ten days afterward; but it subject; but proposed a systematic was resisted with great ingenuity and colonization--in some territory to be earnestness by all the Opposition and acquired outside of the present limits by a few of the more conservative of our country--of those Blacks who Administration Senators. Other bills had already, or might thereafter, be having obtained precedence in the come free in consequence of the war. Senate, Mr. F. P. Blair reported to He coolly added :

the House from its Military Commit“It might be well to consider, too, tee, an additional Article of War, as whether the free colored people already in follows: the United States could not, so far as individuals may desire, be included in such colo

“All officers are prohibited from employnization.”

ing any of the forces under their respective

commands for the purpose of returning fuCongress acceded to this, so far as gitives from service or labor who may have to appropriate $100,000 in aid of the escaped from any persons to whom such sercolonization as aforesaid of the freed

vice or labor is claimed to be due. Any

officer who shall be found guilty by courtmen of the District of Columbia ; martial of violating this article shall be diswhich sum, or most of it, was duly missed from the service.” squandered to the satisfaction of cer- This bill was strenuously opposed. tain speculators, and the intense, pro- by Messrs. Mallory and Wickliffe, tracted misery of a few deluded of Kentucky, as also by Mr. ValBlacks, who were taken to a wretch- landigham, of Ohio, while ably ed sand-spit, known as Cow Island, advocated by Mr. Bingham, of Ohio on the coast of Hayti, and kept there and passed by a (substantially) party so long as they could be: and this was vote: Yeas 83; Nays 44. Having: the practical finale of the Coloniza- been received by the Senate and retion project.

ferred to its Military Committee, it:

was duly reported therefrom by Mr. The XXXVIIth Congress having H. Wilson ; vehemently opposed by convened for its second (or first reg- Messrs. Garret Davis, of Ky., Carlile, ular) session, Gen. Wilson, of Mass., of Va., Saulsbury, of Del., and supgave notice in Senate of a bill to ported by Messrs. Wilson, of Mass., punish officers and privates of our Howard, of Michigan, Sherman, of armies for arresting, detaining, or de Ohio, McDougall, of Cal., and Anlivering persons claimed as fugitive thony, of R. I., and passed :10 Yeas slaves; and Mr. O. Lovejoy, of Ill., 29; Nays 9-a party vote, save that simultaneously introduced a bill of Mr. McDougall, of Cal., voted Yea. like tenor in the House. Mr. Wilson The bill thus enacted was approved. submitted his bill on the 23d; a re- by the President, March 13th, 1862. solve to the same effect having been Gen. Wilson, upon evidence that submitted by Mr. Sumner six days the above act was inadequate to rebefore; as one of like nature was strain the negro-catching propensities. this day laid before the House by of some officers in the service, pro* Dec. 3, 1861. Dec. 2, 1861. Dec. 4. ? Jan. 6, 1862. Feb. 25. March 4. 10 March 10..